1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a display and a driving method thereof, and more particularly, to an auto-stereoscopic three-dimensional (3D) display and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Along with the development of technologies, flat panel displays have been gradually replaced by three-dimensional (3D) displays in order to bring a more intuitive and enjoyable experience to the viewers. The development direction of today's 3D display technologies is to present stereoscopic and lifelike images.
Existing 3D displays can be roughly categorized into stereoscopic 3D displays and auto-stereoscopic 3D displays. The difference between these two types of 3D displays is that when a viewer views images displayed on a stereoscopic 3D display, the viewer needs to wear a pair of specially designed stereoscopic glasses to experience the 3D effect, while when the viewer views images displayed on an auto-stereoscopic 3D display, the viewer can sense the 3D effect by directly looking at the images. Since the stereoscopic 3D display techniques require the viewers to wear stereoscopic glasses to view stereoscopic images, the viewers may feel inconvenient. Besides, dizziness and other discomforts may be sensed if a viewer wears stereoscopic glasses for a long time. Thereby, the auto-stereoscopic 3D display technology is evolving and becoming the mainstream 3D display technology.
In an auto-stereoscopic 3D display, stereoscopic images are usually produced through parallax stereogram. In the parallax stereogram technique, an image presented to a viewer's left and right eyes is vertically cut in unit of pixel columns A new image is then generated by re-arranging the odd and even pixel columns of the original image. When the new image is displayed, a parallax barrier is added in front of the new image. Through the shielding effect of parallel grating strips, the left eye and the right eye can respectively see a left-eye image and a right-eye image in the re-arranged image, so that a stereoscopic image can be perceived by the viewer's brain.
However, in a general auto-stereoscopic 3D display, to display an interlaced image on the display panel, corresponding image data for driving the display panel has to be generated through software processing. Due to the extra image processing step, the efficiency of the auto-stereoscopic 3D display is reduced. Besides, because an external host can only display stereoscopic images on the auto-stereoscopic 3D display when the processing software is installed in the host, the compatibility between the auto-stereoscopic 3D display and the host is restricted.